Call to Power 2: Worth me getting?

[jgflg]

Originally posted by Moraelin
Sadly, Civ 3 diplomacy doesn't seem to be all that much better, either. My experience with the game is as follows:

I peacefully research and try not to piss off anyone. By 1000 BC already _everyone_ appears as "annoyed" with me in the diplomacy screen. Why? I have no idea. By the time we've moved into the AD range, suddenly the Zulu declare war on me. For no obvious reason. Or some other random Civ. They bring a few allies, I bring in someone who brings more allies, and soon it's a jolly good world war, with everyone fighting everyone. The 1000 year war is just starting.

Some random civ of those brought against me, say, the Iroquois would come plead for peace. Fair enough. Their territory is ripe for picking, all next to my capital and whatnot, but wth... I'm already having too much corruption with all those conquered Zulu cities. I say, ok, let's smoke the crack... erm... the PEACE pipe and pretend it never happened. They do however stay "FURIOUS" with me, even though I did nothing outside of self-defense against them during that war.

The exact next turn, the exact same Iroquois come and ask me to withdraw my troops from their lands, or face war with them. WTH, ok, sorry, I'm retreating them towards the Zulu border right now. But since they also have some two dozen troops that don't move from MY lands, I ask in return "Withdraw your troops or declare war!" Gee, who would have guessed... They declare war. Didn't they just ask to be spared one turn ago? This time I make peace with the Zulu (who only have 2 cities left anyway), and make a point of hunting down every single Iroquois settlement.

A few turns later, comes Japan, the Civ that was my ally against the Zulu. (And which wiped out most of the Zulu cities while I was still building my army. Thanks, Japan.) They make me a proposal: "Give us Gunpowder or we'll destroy your puny civilization." Ha! Puny? Last I checked, I still have more cities than you. I answer "Take your empty threats elsewhere." Gee, whoda thunkkit? Japan just declared war on me.

I still have the offensive units that I used against the Zulu around, so I take half the Zulu cities back from Japan. And wipe out the hordes of samurai sent to take them back. Then I plead for peace. I mean, wth, I'm already so far in my march to East that I'm getting 1 shield and 1 coin in every of those cities. You guessed, Japan stays "furious" with me.

A few turns later, Babylon declares war on me for no obvious reason. And they had already brought three stacks of troops right across my border, near one of my cities. So they attack in the same turn, and I spend 5 minutes just watching waves of suicidal attacks on my Riflemen inside. (My mistake. I should have upgraded them to Infantry.) They're not even neighbours with me or anything, so WTH? Who pissed in their cheerios? Incidentally, their troops are in India's teritory, which doesn't seem to mind it, but does protest when I march my troops through their teritory towards Babylon.

And since I've just upgraded to Cossacs during the war against Zulus and Iroquois and Japan, and have two or three dozen of them fortified around, I do make a point of bringing them all by railroad and wiping Babylon out as a country. Gee, more corruption for me.

Three turns later, I see a massive landing, Normandy style of some other civ on the same continent tip where Babylon used to be. Converging on one of my newly conquered cities. Combined with a task force coming on land, through Indian teritory again. Did India open an "attack Moraelin" travel agency, or what? Sure enough, they declare war only when some 4-5 units are right next to the city again. I still have those Cossaks around, so I scramble to wipe out the rest of their mongolian hordes of archers and warriors before they can get near that city and swamp them with sheer numbers.

I ask for peace after I've had my fun. You guessed, one more civ that'll stay furious at me for ever, even though this time I didn't bother going after their cities.

So please don't tell me there's that much more to do than military stuff in Civ 3.

It seems like the obvious reason all the other civs were declaring war on you was that you didn't have much of an army. That seems like a very logical AI to me. Although the tactic of throwing obsolete units in sheer mass doesn't.

[cutlerd]

I find it very easy to get other civs happy with me. You just have to bring something to the dinner table. If you get into a war with a civ and want to make nice with them, simply negotiating a peace ain't gonna do it (remember the Treaty of Versailles anyone?). You can return some of their cities to them. That usually helps. You can also instigate a Marshall Plan and give them some gold per turn.

Any of this starting to sound logical?

If you are the big man on the civ block and don't occasionally say yes to some of the lesser civs that come a-beggin, they also get more and more resentful of you. Throw them a bone. That's what the USA does in real life.

One thing I like about CIV3 is that, with astute diplomacy, you CAN have a relatively peaceful game. 4000 years of complete peace? Well there is another thread on these boards full of people complaining that they can't get other civs to attack them.

When I hear one person complain that he can never make peace with civs and they constantly gang up on him, and then in another topic I see people complaining that the AI never attacks them, I start to feel that the AI is probably just fine, and people just have to learn it better. After all, it can't be both mutually exclusive outcomes.

I don't know if it is easy or possible to actually go through an entire game from 4000 BC to 2050 AD on a diffculty level above Chieftain and not have a single war....and frankly, I'd hope not, even the Swiss have had wars in rea life, but I do know it IS entirely possible to have game long allies and friends as well as game long enemies

[cutlerd]

Speaking of CTP2 mods...

The entire file section of Apolyton's CTP2 area has been down for over a week now.

Does anyone know where I else I can get the following:

Modswapper
Apolyton Pack latest version
AI swarm (if not in AP)

Devin

[Wyked]

CtP2's public works system and combat system make it a stand out in the civ field IMO.. although slavers, priests, and lawyers got dammed annoying

[Venger]

I was disappointed enough in Civ3 to go buy CTP2 - I downloaded some mods and installed them (or tried, it's not exactly very easy), but have yet to play a game of it...also picked up SMAC as well...

Venger

[Kolyana]

Gee, thanks guys .. that really gave me an insight into the game.

Must be honest, on one hand the thread is quite pro-CtP, and on the other it's somewhat against. I do sense, however, a general leaning towards ...

Maybe I'll get it as a Crimbo present ... perhaps something for myself from me, lol.

Ven, you played it yet?

[cutlerd]

Well let me just add this. CTP2 is, IMO, absolutely unplayable without mods. The AI is really the worst I have ever seen.

The mechanics behind CTP2 are very nice seeming. That's one reason I want to get access to the mods. One mod, described as 'AI Swarm' says it makes the AI much more aggressive.

Assuming the mods are as good as they say, I think CTP2 with mods is probably a good game. But please do not expect a good game unmodified.

Devin

[Moraelin]

Cutlerd, I have no problem with being nice to them. I usually aggree cheerfully to trade aggreements where I'm being royally ripped off.

Not that there seems to be any other kind of trade. When I try pulling a trade treaty, they won't accept anything short of robbing me blind. Stuff that's just reasonably in their favour no longer cuts it. I'm talking trades like I'll give them diamonds AND 100 gold per turn so they accept to give me furs. And wth, even that I wouldn't mind if it actually helped keep them happy. But most often even just to keep them at Polite level, I have to give them a steady stream of money for nothing.

And when I ask for an alliance, I ALWAYS throw at least 500 gold (sometimes even 1000) on the table. I mean, those guys will have a bunch of military expenses and everything. Plus WTH, it's cheaper for me than to rush-build 50 offensive units myself.

The problem is that it becomes harder and harder to keep them even at the Cautious level. Their requests start getting more and more unreasonable, starting from "Let's trade maps and you also give me technology" and go downhill from there. Pretty soon it's only "Give us this or that or we attack." If I aggree, 10 turns later they're back, asking for another technology. If I don't aggree, they attack.

It's kind of a "you're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't". On one hand I'd like to be a good neighbour, but on the other hand I don't want to keep giving techs for free to every loser with 4 cities who feels like flexing his spearmens' muscles. And on yet another hand, after a few threats I start thinking "wth, if you want to play Osama with me, sure , I can play Bush with you. Bring it on, buddy. Let's dance."

That's also not counting when they attack without even any attempt to negotiate first. E.g., in the above example the Babylonians and that last civilization who pulled an invasion by sea, never sent an envoy or anything. I just hear they declared war. Why? Bugger me if I know. Other than that I had some city with only 1 or 2 defenders for a few turns, I can see no good reason.

Strangely enough, it's not getting a peace again that's a problem. They'll usually aggree to a peace all right when they've lost 90% of their offensive units and half the cities. In many cases, even long before that. They'll just be back for more, though. I could give them a Marshall plan, but chances are that whenever I end it, they'll just use those money for more hordes of bowmen to send my way.

Well, don't get me wrong, it's not like I mind it that much. A little war every now and then just spices things up. Plus, it gives me less conscience problems with going after all those nicely placed cities that I could use. (Or that I couldn't, because of corruption)

Just pointing out that in the end, the Civ 3 model -- and the Civ series in general -- isn't that much different in that aspect. If you're too strong they attack. If you're too weak they attack. If you're too technologically advanced they attack. If you're too under-developped they attack. All that diplomacy is good and nice, but in the end all the choices are of the "choose whether you want to be kicked in the head or in the balls" kind

[yin26]

I'd just like to say right here that I prefer to be kicked in the head. Thank you for listening.

[Badtz Maru]

The AI in Civ3 has a strong competitive factor to it, which explains why it's impossible to get a fair deal for luxuries when you are much bigger than the AI. It seems to look at who is going to benefit the most from the deal, not the flat numbers. If I have 50 cities and already have 4 luxuries, one more is going to increase my productivity a lot more than 2 luxuries and 50 gold per turn will for a 20 city civilization that only has access to one luxury. Luxury items are incredibly powerful, that's why I hardly ever give them to another civilization unless it's absolutely necessary to my plans - I want him to have to build lots of expensive improvements and pull entertainers out of his mines to keep productive.

[Venger]

Kolyana -

No I've not played it yet, further than booting, starting a game, and checking the UI out (very cool, and loads of info is RIGHT THERE). Also found I could create an Army out of my first two settlers (pointless but cool nonetheless).

I tried to load the Apolyton mod with the Good Mod pack, can't tell if it worked yet...

Venger
P.S. I still haven't played my last 8 turns of my current Civ game...

[Peets]

Originally posted by jgflg


It seems like the obvious reason all the other civs were declaring war on you was that you didn't have much of an army. That seems like a very logical AI to me. Although the tactic of throwing obsolete units in sheer mass doesn't.

The AI isn't aggresive to another AI.
They act different against a human then a AI... it's bug or a cheat if you ask me...

[H Tower]

don't get it! there's no point, civ3 is better, and that's not saying much...

[Mannamagnus]

CtP2 never gave me that "just one more turn feeling"which civ 1-3 and smac did give me. Save your money for something better.

[Moraelin]

Venger, you can tell if you have the GoodMod if you start seeing those new goods on the map. There are a bunch of stuff, like for example dyes, which didn't exist in the game originally. The Apolyton pack, if you try to teraform something (not just build a farm) and it takes something like a dozen turns, on top of the time you needed to accumulate the public works points, then it's safe to assume it's in effect, too.

Badtz Maru, that may well be so, but the fact is that he's getting 3 sources of +2 (or sometimes even +3) luxuries, in exchange for his one source of +1 luxuries. Sure, it'll help me, no doubt, but I should think it helps him a lot too. That's the whole idea of a trade. (As opposed to good old fashioned highway robbery)

And one point I probably didn't make very clear before is that I really don't mind a war against someone with half my number of cities, a quarter of the economy, and who's one era behind in technology. Breaks the boredom, and all that.

On the other hand, I wouldn't mind being a good neighbour, either, if they only asked NICELY. If they came with a reasonable lie (e.g., "please, we're being attacked, we need all the help and technology we can get.") I wouldn't mind helping them. And I would understand it when they got annoyed if I refuse. I mean, wth, I must be inhuman if I refused to help them in their darkest hour. What makes me prefer to wipe them out is that they openly THREATEN. And more often than not they actually attack.

Peets, actually, in all fairness, the AI seems to be just as aggressive to everyone. I've seen them waging war upon each other even without my stirring their pot. In fact, if I give anyone enough money, chances are they'll use it to attack someone else. (Which kind of serves my interests perfectly, since now they fight instead of catching up technologically.)

I would kind of have liked to have some more diplomacy options, though, such as paying for a very speciffic non-military improvement for someone. Or giving money in exchange for their reducing their army a bit. (Just disband some of those warriors that never get upgraded anyway.) But that's just a minor wish.

I guess jgflg's theory actually has a lot of merit. Early in the game I tend to focus almost exclusively on expanding over as much teritory as possible. Which isn't to say I don't build anything else, but mostly only in as much as it serves the expansion purposes. My cities tend to be rather weakly defended, compared to the AI cities which have like 5-6 units each, so I guess that makes me a prime candidate for aggression.

(What the AI doesn't seem to check though, is that while I may have only two or sometimes one unit defending a city, I also eventually accumulate a mobile group of offensive units. And the money and shield production to churn as many more as I need. So he may take a city or two, and usually just pointlessly raze them, but then he's got my own invasion force striking 3-4 of its cities in parallel. That is, after I used it to wipe his own invasion force. Just an observation.)